


Bound

by HollowMashiro



Category: Room of Swords (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, M/M, Multi, will add more tags as they become relevant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:54:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22208227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HollowMashiro/pseuds/HollowMashiro
Summary: In an alternate realm of eyes monsters, the giants draw their power from a deceptively useless substance. Gyrus and Kodya discover this the hard way and wind up a bit... mixed up with each other. Literally.
Relationships: Gyrus Axelei/Kodya Karevic
Comments: 10
Kudos: 59





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning, updates will be slow.

Gyrus heaved a sigh as he half-walked, half-climbed after Kodya up a steep trail on a cliffside, fighting to keep his balance while keeping up with the taller man. Gyrus was beginning to sorely dislike this place, with its many-eyed monsters and having to stab himself every thirty-six hours to reset the horrible timer in the sky to avoid being eaten by eldritch horrors. And also how hard he was being put through his paces by his survival teacher.

He’d only been through a few cycles with Kodya thus far, but the man was turning out to be a relentless taskmaster. He was a hard person to read, showing a strange form of awkward concern one moment and then becoming completely closed off the next. Gyrus was beginning to understand that Kodya had gone through some horrible things while trapped here, and it helped him keep his temper when Kodya mercilessly threw him into a monster pit or left him with enough bruises while sparring that he was more black and blue than not.

“Almost there, kid!” Kodya called.

Gyrus sighed in relief. Kodya hadn’t explained why they were traveling to this place, but he assumed it would be for training, either some sort of uniquely challenging place to practice and spar or another pit of monsters.

When Gyrus pulled himself up over the lip of the cliff, he saw that it was the former rather than the latter. There were no monsters, just a small, rocky platform that jutted out over an oily, purplish lake far below.

“So, I’m sure you know what _that_ is,” Kodya said, nodding towards the lake.

Gyrus grimaced, remembering how he’d curiously dipped his fingertips into a puddle of the stuff and withdrew them with terrible chemical burns during his first remembered cycle. “Some kind of acid, right?”

“Yes, it seems so,” Kodya replied. “I’ve seen this stuff melt small monsters in minutes. I’ve also noticed that the sentient monsters here use it for some kind of ritual, and that the stronger ones with many eyes seem to do so less often than the ones with fewer eyes, so they’re immune to it. Keep that in mind when you’re fighting them; if there’s any acid nearby, you can’t use it to your advantage.”

“The stronger monsters have more eyes, and the weaker monsters have fewer eyes, right?” Gyrus said, remembering when he’d run into the residents of the castle his first cycle.

“Correct,” Kodya said. “As a rule of thumb, if you can’t count the number of eyes a monster or giant has within a couple moments, they’re probably too strong for you right now.”

Gyrus remembered the strength of the giants Two and One, and how they had eyes all over their bodies, and shuddered. The eyes weren’t even weak points, as Gyrus had seen when Sylvia tried to punch out an eye and Two hadn’t even been affected.

“Now then,” Kodya continued, withdrawing his boss sword from his inventory, “Knowing what this stuff can do, I’m sure that it will provide you with plenty of incentive to keep an eye on your surroundings. This is a pretty small area, sheer cliffs on one side and a drop into acid on the other. You tend to use a large space when fighting; nothing wrong with that, but you need to be able to fight in confined, dangerous settings too. Watch where you’re stepping, and don’t trip.”

Gyrus hastily summoned his own sword, gulping. “B-but what if I fall?” he squeaked. Gyrus looked at the lake with trepidation. He’d never seen such a large amount of the acid concentrated into one location; thus far, he’d only seen it in small pools or dripping from rocks.

“You’ve got those fancy boots, don’t you? Slow your fall, and I can throw a rope to you and pull you back up,” Kodya said as he lunged, not wasting a moment to begin.

Gyrus parried, a little more familiar with using his sword now, and automatically used his jump boots to boost his speed and gain some distance—

And wound up jumping right over the cliff edge, on the dry side. He shouted in alarm; his jump boots could slow his fall but it was still a hell of a drop. Within moments, though, a rope slapped him in the face, and Gyrus desperately scrabbled to grab hold of it. As he fell toward the cliff face, drawn in by the rope, he used his jump boots to avoid breaking his legs when he hit the rocky wall. Face burning, because it hadn’t taken more than a couple of moments to go over the cliff, Gyrus jumped back up to the platform in two augmented bounds.

Kodya looked unimpressed. “Let’s try that again,” he said, swapping the rope for his sword, and then he advanced relentlessly.

Gyrus lost track of time as he clumsily fended off Kodya. He was still getting the hang of using his gravitational power in tandem with an unfamiliar weapon, and he had to keep an eye on his footing or he’d slip off the platform. He wound up falling over the cliff edge on both sides multiple times, occasionally tripped on the uneven ground, and generally felt like he embarrassed himself.

He could tell he was improving, however, because his falls off the cliff were becoming less and less frequent, and Kodya was having to put more effort into fending him off.

Less frequent didn’t mean _never_ yet, though, and Gyrus sighed as he clung to the rope for what felt like the umpteenth time that day, dangling precariously over the purple lake of acid. Kodya looked a bit worn out as his face appeared over the cliff edge. Hauling Gyrus up every time he fell must have been taking a toll on Kodya, even when Gyrus used his boots to help out.

Gyrus scrambled to heave himself onto the platform once he was close enough. Kodya reached out and helped him up to the edge.

Gyrus had only barely found his footing when Kodya’s grip suddenly went slack, and Gyrus wobbled, unbalanced and dangerously close to falling again.

“Kodya, wh—” he began, until he spotted the shadowy, jittery humanoid creature standing on the other edge of the platform, its monstrous, glowing eyes boring into them chillingly.

_Shit, a Shadow soldier? Here, now?_ Gyrus thought, panicked. Thankfully, Kodya regained some of his mobility as he overcame the Shadow’s paralysis, and his grip tightened a little.

“Пиздец,” Kodya hissed, keeping one arm wrapped around Gyrus as he drew his sword with the other.

The Shadow lunged forward, screeching. Gyrus braced his footing as much as he could; they needed to get away from the cliff edge. He raised an arm to blast it—

A shadowy limb shot forward and wrapped around Gyrus’s leg. It _burned_ with a deep cold and sapped Gyrus of his strength; he felt himself collapsing backwards—

Kodya cut the limb; the Shadow screeched in pain and withdrew for a moment. Kodya tried to keep hold of him and keep them both from falling over the edge—

The cliff edge crumbled, and Gyrus and Kodya plummeted towards the acid lake below. Gyrus tried to slow their fall with his boots while clinging to Kodya, but they only sputtered weakly, malfunctioning from the Shadow’s drain. Kodya pulled out his bow, as well as an arrow attached to a rope, but the wind ripped the arrow from his weakened, clumsy fingers.

Time seemed to slow as Gyrus and Kodya tumbled in circles, spiraling around each other. Gyrus clutched onto Kodya’s vest as hard as he could, and he felt Kodya clinging back.

They were going to die. Between the impact and the acid, there was no way they’d make it. They would wake up in the next cycle without any memories. Gyrus regretted, so strongly, that Kodya would be joining him; Kodya would lose so much more than he would. It was Gyrus’s fault they were in that situation in the first place; Kodya wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t been training Gyrus.

But… at least he wasn’t alone right now.

They hit the surface of the lake, and then everything was blazing light.

* * *

“Shit,” Three muttered with horror as the two tiny pipsqueaks hit the surface of the sacred lake. The lake immediately responded, throwing up a dazzlingly bright beacon of light, brighter than even Three himself could elicit, bright enough to be easily visible back at the castle. It would take him a bit to make it to the lake and fish them out; no telling how much of it they’d absorb before Three could _stop them_.

It was forbidden for outsiders to even get _near_ their sacred lake. One was going to be _pissed_.


	2. Chapter 2

Awareness returned slowly, in pieces. His thoughts were fragmented… and he felt strange, too. What had happened…?

A cliff, good for – difficult for – training, that he’d been brought to – that he’d found. And then, a Shadow soldier, and falling into the acid lake—

 _I’m alive?!_ he thought, bewildered. And then, _Where’s Gyr— Kody—_

His thoughts grated painfully. His eyes flew open reflexively from alarm, only to immediately slam shut against stabbing light. His entire body ached, like he’d been pounded into putty and then stretched out of shape. Everything just felt _off_.

“I saw that, vermin,” a feminine voice said, and he groaned when he recognized the voice of Two. “Yer lucky One wanted ya alive for questionin’. I woulda killed ya on the spot. Well, maybe not so lucky, considerin’ One,” she chuckled.

He tentatively cracked open an eye, squinting against the light. He could just make out the giant leaning against the bars of a cage he was no doubt imprisoned in, different from the pit they’d been thrown into during the first – thirty-fourth voyage. He could barely move; it felt like he was tightly shackled with chains.

“What do you want?” he rasped, coughing as his dry throat protested. Even his voice sounded… wrong.

“What do ya think, dumbass?” Two snapped. “Ya jumped into the Bond Lake and drained over half of it before Three could fish ya out!”

“The… what?”

“Don’t play dumb, ya stinkin’ rat. Betcha heard some rumor about the Bond Lake increasin’ yer power and wanted to see for yerself, right? Damn Three, slackin’ on the job and lettin’ some vermin _outsiders_ steal so much of it…”

“Where am I?” he asked, blinking as his surroundings came into focus. But his sight still felt off; maybe too sharp, or the colors were slightly too vivid…? “And where’s Ko— Gy— the other man I was with?”

Two blinked at him with her many eyes, like he’d just asked the dumbest question, then scowled furiously. “Are ya tryin’ to tell me ya _don’t know_?” she asked incredulously.

“Know what?” he asked defensively.

“Yer synch strength is second _only to One’s_ , and ya _don’t know?!_ ” she shrieked, clenching her fist so hard her glove creaked. “I oughtta kill ya _right now_ for yer insult!”

He braced himself in anticipation of getting smashed by the glove when a door creaked open, and a timid voice interrupted, “H-has he woken up yet, Two? Should I report to One?”

Two audibly ground her teeth together but begrudgingly replied, “Yeah, yeah, he woke up. I need to go report to One myself about this shit.” With a scathing glare in his direction, she stormed out of the room. Thankfully, no other guard replaced her.

He sighed in relief. “That was close,” he muttered. “I’ve got to escape before One arrives…” He looked down, to examine the chains, but—

“That’s… not right,” he said, distracted by the yellow – the blue of his shirt. The style – the material – the color was wrong, but it looked most like—

“Gyrus,” he breathed, struggling to understand what he was seeing as his thoughts scattered. The feeling of _wrongness_ intensified, especially in his torso and arms, and there was extra weight on his back that was familiar – unfamiliar. He reached a hand back as far as the chains would allow and felt long hair, too long even for—

“Kodya,” he choked, gripping a fistful of hair. And then he looked down again, and—

“ _What the hell is this?!_ ” he shrieked, not even caring about the noise he was making in hostile territory, because he had _four goddamn arms._

And now that he was paying attention, he could _feel_ the way his thoughts were pulling in two different directions and scraping against each other, like there were two people in his head—

And with blinding, horrible clarity, he knew that he was _exactly that_.

 _Oh god, can that fucking acid melt people together??_ Gyru—odya panicked, because he – they could tell, both Gyrus and Kodya were _here_ , crammed together in one mutated body, thoughts tumbling and clashing and jumbled together in a horrified, terrified mess. They strained against each other, their thoughts running nearly parallel and almost, almost separate – but then they snapped back tightly together, like a rubber band.

 _Oh god, I – we need to fix this_ , he – they thought, breath coming hard and fast in their fear, strong enough to override the relief that they were both alive because they were certainly _not okay._

All four of their arms reflexively but uselessly strained against the chains. And – fuck, it was terrifying how _natural_ and _easy_ it felt to coordinate all four limbs, even taking Kodya’s experience with body-snatching into account.

Shit, what would Tori and Sylvia – the Room of Swords inhabitants think if they couldn’t figure out how to split apart? They would usually reset if something went _this_ wrong, but would resetting even work properly anymore?

 _One step at a time_ , Ko—rus thought, forcibly trying to calm themselves – himself. Which was difficult, because both parts of him were freaking out. _Survive and escape. And_ then _you – we can panic._

Breaking out would probably be easy. Assuming Gyrus’s gravitational power still worked. It was easy – but shit, how did he – they use that power…?

 _Believe in yourself. Don’t think, just do it!_ they – he thought, concentrating on the manacles, imagining them popping open—

With a rush of departing mana and the gleam of wrong-colored blue-green light, the manacles shattered into pieces.

 _Don’t stop moving_ , he thought, even as part of him wanted to stop and stare at the unintentionally – impossibly destroyed manacles, and then maybe curl into a ball. The cage bars were similarly easy to wreck, and then he – they faced a new challenge… walking.

They were much taller than Kodya or Gyrus, and their center or gravity was all wrong thanks to the extra arms. Fuck, how could they get out of there if they couldn’t even _walk_ , let alone run?

“Shit,” they muttered as they heard the sound of thunderous footsteps approaching. Forget about dignity; they had to _move_.

Kodya knew how it felt to end up in a body not his own, and the part of him that was Gyrus soaked in the knowledge in mere moments. The body knows how it’s supposed to work; don’t overthink; just let it use its own motion dynamics for your movements.

But _this_ body was new and inexperienced, and even with Kodya’s skill, they were ungracefully stumbling and half-crawling and far too slow—

“ ** _Get back here, you insignificant wretches!_** ” One thundered behind them. “ ** _How_ dare _you try to escape judgment!_** ”

Adrenaline and fear leant speed and coordination where mere effort and thinking failed. Kod – they sprinted towards a small side door they’d spotted, away from the boss. They weaved side to side unpredictably, still struggling to balance properly. It probably saved them; One’s eyelash attacks were off-aim and kept missing. Gyr – they forced the door open as they approached and skidded into a small, steep, circular stairwell.

 _Down down down down down, keep moving!_ they – he thought, jumping over four steps at a time. He shielded his head with his upper two arms from debris as One tore apart her castle in her rage to get to him.

Halfway down, there was a many-eyed giant on the steps, which he – they recognized as Four. They didn’t even hesitate as they reflexively thrust their lower arms forward, glowing with blue-green power, to blast it into the wall – frighten it into not moving—

The giant shrieked in terror as it was flung over their head behind them, and they barely noticed that it ran up the stairwell and _towards_ One’s rampage instead of away, busy as they – he was in fleeing.

The hallway he burst into was an unfamiliar part of the castle – familiar part from earlier exploration. He sprinted towards the front of the castle, dodging around startled, fewer-eyed giants with much greater ease and coordination. Then there was an alarming crash behind him, and he – they reflexively spared a glance to look.

It was One, looking apoplectic, at the other end of the foyer, about to fire her ultimate attack—

They were a split second too slow to totally dodge, and a massive eyelash sliced into their upper left arm, deep enough to almost hit bone. They – he cried out in pain, but he couldn’t stop, he just needed to keep moving—

The unstable castle wall crumbled on one side, revealing a dry chasm that was crossed only by a winding bridge guarded by lasers. But the entrance to the bridge was too far, and One was too close.

He dashed for the hole in the wall; falling into the chasm would be kinder than facing One. At the edge of the castle, he activated his – their jump boots a split second before they could wonder if the boots would even still work—

The boots _exploded_ with power, propelling them much farther than they’d seen – knew they were capable of, sending them careening straight over the gaping chasm to the cliffs on the other side. Behind them, they heard One howl with rage.

Landing was messy; they hit the ground and went sprawling head over heels, accumulating an impressive collection of scrapes and bruises. But they’d – he’d survived in one piece, and it would be easy to lose any pursuers; he had too great of a head start. He quickly ate a heartbeet, ignoring how it tasted too sweet – too tart, and ran.

His – their coordination remained intact until they made it back to Kodya’s shelter, unpursued. A quick check of the sky revealed that the timer still had a few more hours remaining. They panted, feeling their chest heave in exertion from their mad escape, as the impossibility of the situation crashed down on them.

They brought all four of their hands up to examine. The top two were Kodya’s, a bit bonier and noticeably rougher with archer’s callouses, and the bottom two were Gyrus’s, slightly smaller and softer but beginning to develop callouses of their own. But their arm equipment was swapped on their left side, with Gyrus’s glove and wrap covering Kodya’s left hand and Kodya’s bracers sheathing Gyrus’s left arm. The rest of their clothing looked smashed together somewhat haphazardly. They ran their top two hands over their hair, which was pulled into a ponytail. It fluffed like Gyrus’s but was even longer than Kodya’s. They pulled it in front of them to examine and found that the color was a messy, splotchy, semi-blended jumble of Gyrus’s and Kodya’s hair colors. Thankfully, unlike their hair, their skin was a uniform color, just a bit too pink to be Gyrus’s and a bit too pale to be Kodya’s.

They looked like a _mongrel_. They didn’t even want to find something reflective to look at their face with.

“Guess it’s okay to panic now,” they said weakly as the severity and sheer absurdity of the situation fully sunk in. Gyrus and Kodya were stuck together, literally mixed up into each other, body and mind, and they had no idea if the effect was reversible.

They collapsed to their knees, all six limbs trembling, and dry-heaved.

* * *

Elsewhere, in a shadowy, hidden, strange place, a darkly-clothed man struggled to slosh through a strange, gleaming liquid.

“What the _hell_ is going on out there?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...okay, I guess updates will be inconsistent instead of just plain slow.


	3. Chapter 3

They leaned against the side of Kodya’s shelter some time later, eyes closed so they wouldn’t have to look at their mutated form. Thoughts about the inhabitants of the Room of Swords they had – hadn’t met, their mission from Don – which mission? – to find Gyrus and – but now Gyrus is – and how would Kodya – trying to understand memories – knowledge not his – their own – don’t look – how do we – don’t want this, I want – we want our bodies back—

“There has to be a way to fix this,” they said aloud, a little despairingly. At least the sound cut off the headache-inducing whirl of thought. _I – we’ll go crazy if we don’t._

“The giants know what the stuff in that damn lake is. We should ask them.”

“They’re not going to give us anything willingly. We’ll have to use force.” Recent – foreign memories of useless, unsuccessful voyages flashed in their mind before the memories flicked away with anger – a sense of wrongness. “That will have to wait for the next voyage, though. We’re running out of time.” The sliver of time left in the timer was too small for comfort.

They materialized Kodya’s – Gyrus’s sword in their hands and wound up drawing both swords. Which was when they realized – in this abomination of a body, could they even properly reset in this combined form? And would they need to use both swords, or only one?

They didn’t have time to figure out how to split themselves apart, if it was even possible. They would just have to reset like this and deal with any problems from it in the next voyage. Two swords would be safer, because even though they were stuck in one body, they were _two_ people. Even if only one sword was needed, both swords would still come back with them, so they would still have the second sword. But if they reset back in their own separate bodies, and the wounds from this body carried over to both of them, they would have twice the damage to fix from two holes in each of them.

They certainly _wanted_ to reset into their own bodies, extra injuries or no, but they didn’t dare hope for it.

They studied the swords in consideration before realizing, irritably, that their discussion had been entirely internal, and that they couldn’t even really call it a proper conversation between them because they weren’t quite sure which ideas had come from which of them. At least it hadn’t been jumbled and almost incoherent like before.

Ugh, the way they had almost no privacy in their thoughts was _intolerable._

There was no time left to debate. Already, the sky was starting to take on a reddish hue.

“Damn it,” they muttered. The one-and-a-half boss swords weighed heavily in their hands. They had to go.

Using both swords was still their safest option. Grimacing in anticipation of the depressingly – increasingly familiar agony, they thrust both swords into their belly. They choked on blood as darkness rapidly overtook their vision.

* * *

_Oh god_ , was Gyrus’s first thought as he regained consciousness. Everything ached, especially his head, and the boss sword was a searing presence in his gut. He felt especially terrible as he groped for a dried heartbeet chew from his inventory and heaved the heavy boss sword out of him with a strangled yell, knowing how to handle resets from his time with Kodya. The heartbeet chew wiped away the fire in his stomach from the single stab wound, but the malaise lingered. God, he felt horrible, and his mind felt like mush.

It took him longer than it should have to realize that he was alone in his head, and that his body was his own.

Gyrus felt a rush of triumph and relief. He liked being _himself_ , thanks, not some mixed, mashed-up combination of himself and Kodya. Whatever had happened to them the last voyage was easily the strangest thing that had happened to him in this unearthly place, even compared to the other weird things he’d experienced.

The flash of happiness quickly ebbed, replaced with the pervasive pain and weakness he’d woken up with that apparently couldn’t be fixed with a heartbeet. This was way worse than any other reset he’d experienced, probably because of what had happened last voyage. Ugh, he didn’t want to move, let alone train with Kodya, but the man would undoubtedly drag Gyrus back to his camp if Gyrus didn’t meet up with him.

Groaning, Gyrus struggling to his hands and knees as he groped for his boss sword. He dragged it towards him and squinted at it, struggling to keep his eyes open. It had felt a little too heavy earlier, but Gyrus had assumed it was because he was feeling so weak.

But no, Gyrus realized as he blearily blinked at the boss sword, it was heavier because it was a full sword, not the half sword he’d been carrying around the past voyages. For a wild moment, he thought the other half of his sword had somehow been reclaimed and reunited with the hilt piece, but then remembered that Kodya owned a full sword, and that it had probably followed the wrong person into the next voyage.

_I really need to get this to him_ , Gyrus thought. _Kodya will definitely want it back._ For a moment, he had a horrible speculation that Kodya hadn’t been reset, but he calmed himself by reasoning that if he had Kodya’s sword, then Kodya likely had Gyrus’s half-sword.

But that meant that Gyrus actually had to get up and get moving, when all he wanted to do was let his leaden body flop back to the ground and then sleep.

Gyrus groaned, a drawn-out sound that ended in a whimper, before he forced himself to stand on unstable feet. He wobbled for a moment before steadying, then sent Kodya’s sword to his inventory for safekeeping.

Gyrus really hoped this malaise would go away on its own, because he was in no shape to fight anything in his condition. His path to his and Kodya’s shared encampment, which had been set up between their two reset points, had always been free of monsters thus far; it would be just his luck if this was the first voyage the route wasn’t safe.

Gyrus slowly trudged towards the encampment, his feet dragging against the ground. Each step felt like a struggle. He tried to withdraw Scout to scan him and provide assistance, but found that Scout wasn’t in his inventory. Maybe Scout had wound up with Kodya, too.

At least Gyrus most likely wouldn’t have to worry about training this voyage. Kodya demanded everything Gyrus had to give, but his mentor also knew when it was best to stop and rest.

Gyrus was close to the encampment when he tripped with a yelp and went down hard, face-first. He moaned as a handful of new scrapes and bruises flared, echoing the background aching and weakness throughout his whole body. The scant amount of energy he’d scraped up to get all the way to this point seemed to drain away, leaving him empty. His body felt like it was glued to the ground. Uncomfortable as the hard, scratchy rock was, Gyrus didn’t want to move. He felt awful.

He laid there in a daze for what felt like hours, but was probably only a few minutes, when he heard shuffling footsteps approaching. Gyrus could barely muster the energy to feel apprehensive of the possibility of it being an eyes monster, let alone raise his head to see what was approaching.

The footsteps stopped right in front of him. “Kid?” a familiar masculine voice rasped.

Gyrus sighed, relieved. Maybe Kodya would know how to fix this. He turned his head to the side, enough to be able to squint up at the figure in front of him.

“You look about as bad as I feel,” Kodya sighed, running his hand through limp hair. The man was pale as a sheet, with circles as dark as bruises under his eyes, and his posture was slumped in a listless way Gyrus had never seen from the determined man.

Gyrus made an unintelligible grunt in response. Damn aftereffects of whatever had happened to them in the last voyage.

Kodya pulled a familiar half-sword from his inventory. “I assume you have my sword.”

Gyrus nodded wordlessly, flopped a boneless arm in Kodya’s direction, and withdrew the intact sword. Kodya grunted in acknowledgement and bent forward awkwardly, looking about as flexible as an eighty-year-old. Kodya returned his sword to his inventory before dropping the broken one by Gyrus’s hand. Gyrus barely had to move to touch the sword and return it to his inventory, where it belonged.

“Now,” Kodya began, sounding strained, “Neither of us are in any condition to train, so we’re just going to have to wait until this wears off. C’mon, kid, get up. The camp is close and I can’t carry you right now.”

Gyrus moaned in acknowledgement and summoned enough strength to flip over on his back, heartened by Kodya’s presence. He struggled to push himself into a seated position, panting. Ugh, his body felt so pathetic and useless. Did he feel even worse than earlier? Gyrus couldn’t remember a time he’d ever felt so weak, not even when he’d been stricken with the Martian flu as a child.

A helping hand from Kodya appeared in his vision. Gyrus grabbed it without hesitation; he definitely wouldn’t be able to stand on his own, and—

Sparking energy and strength flooded into his body from the point of contact, and it felt like his entire body was tingling and churning. Gyrus cried out as his eyes slammed shut, and he tried to pull away, but he was stuck, being pulled forward—

A feeling of weightlessness and then settling, his body heavy and solid and _balanced_ , all of the aching and malaise gone. He felt _good_. Except—

Thoughts and feelings, a mind not his own, pressing against him, into him, inextricably entwined.

His eyes burst open and flew over his body, even though he already knew what he would see—

Mismatched clothes. Four arms. Overlarge body. The weight of too much hair, trailing against the ground where he – they were sprawled.

“Oh, _come on!_ ”

**Author's Note:**

> Пиздец = damn it; used when a situation has gone bad


End file.
